The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg

Author:Henriette Roosenburg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, BIO038000, BIO037000, BIO006000, HIS043000, HIS037070
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

SHORTLY AFTER THE Hartmanses left us, the wind turned to the north, slowing our progress considerably. We soon discovered that we couldn’t just drift, for the current was tricky, zigzagging from one bank to the other, and if the current was kind enough to stick to the middle of the river, the wind would push us against the banks. So Dries and I alternated at the oars, not rowing steadily, but enough to keep our Montgomery going slowly along in midstream. The sun was shining, the sky stood wide and blue above us, and the river meandered peacefully between grassy banks. Once a couple of Russian soldiers hailed us from the left bank, but all they wanted was to be ferried across, a service we gladly performed. One of them was highly intrigued by our demijohn, but his interest waned when we made it clear that it held water, not alcohol.

Towards noon we came to another pontoon bridge, and again the sentry fired to draw our attention, but we knew this trick by now and rowed towards him without undue haste. This one, too, was interested in our demijohn, but by pointing at the bottle and then scooping up some river water and pointing again, we made it clear that there was nothing there for him to get excited about, and he let us through without difficulty. Even though this demijohn seemed to attract a lot of Russian attention, we were extremely grateful to the thoughtful skippers who had provided it, for as we manoeuvred the boat into position so that we could skip easily under the bridge, we saw two bloated corpses floating among the driftwood that had snagged on the pontoons, and were thoroughly glad we didn’t have to drink Elbe water.

We had our lunch in the boat, and afterwards took turns lying on the poop, letting our feet dangle in the water. It was absolute bliss not to have to use our feet, and, now that we didn’t have to exert ourselves except for some lazy pulls on the oars, we all realised how tired we were. All during the afternoon, at least one of us was sound asleep, lying on the poop or curled up in the bottom of the boat.

At 4.30 pm, Dries, with the aid of his map and the kilometre markers along the bank, had just decided that we must be near the village of Mühlberg when we saw a party of four Russian soldiers standing on the bank to our right. As we drew near, one of them pulled out his revolver and shot into the water, and they all started to shout. Thinking they wanted to be ferried over, we pulled up to them, but then we discovered that they had other things in mind. They spoke only a few words of German, but with many gestures they made it clear that they wanted our boat and that we should continue on foot with the wagons. Quite naturally, we were violently opposed to this idea, and refused to budge.

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